The Question of the British Identity

My research project was two-fold: first, I examined the tensions of the British national identity, in terms of cultural heritage and preservation. The second was examining what the larger artistic implications were for contemporary artists, who are interacting with those legacies. The former was partly addressed through the conversations that occurred prior to the trip itself. It was also examined through the specific cultural institutions I visited that were markers of British identity, including the National Gallery and the British Museum. Within the British Museum, I largely focused on the Elgin Marbles, in light of the discourse surrounding repatriation. The latter was investigated further by visiting and engaging with contemporary British art and artists. Within the National Gallery, I visited the Nalini Malani exhibition who took inspiration from works within the collection to draw animations that “put[] the history of European art under pressure.” The way in which the identity of European art has been subsumed under the identity of the ‘National’ Gallery established a running theme, one that became blatantly clear in the context of the British Museum. I also visited the Tate Modern, which featured several contemporary British artists, like Sammy Baloji, who interacted with a conception of a British identity rooted in colonialism. The desire to reclaim both material and embedded histories was demonstrated even as I visited galleries like Cristea Roberts Gallery and Paul Stolper Gallery. At Cristea Roberts, I was able to visit an exhibition featuring Lubaina Himid, who also sought to engage with marginalized and silenced histories. In this exhibition (Alla Prima/Cross Hatch), specifically, she made twenty-four hand-painted screenprints, recontextualizing images and narratives produced by English satirist, William Hogarth. The medium of prints was one that Chila Kumari Burman also weaponized in her work, “Let’s Take You Higher,” which I was able to discuss with her in-person upon my visit to Paul Stolper Gallery.

Post-Trip Possibilities: I’m definitely interested in exploring these questions of the relationship between cultural identity and national identity, as well as the ways in which former colonial relationships complicate that inheritance. There are several ways in which I imagine this continuation:

1. A talk/article discussing the Elgin Marbles, both the discourse happening during and post- Brexit, as well as the way its currently positioned as “international heritage” as a response (the British identity understood as a global one)
2. An article examining the tension between export bans and repatriation efforts and the ways both of them relate to a greater sense of national identity
3. An interdisciplinary panel discussion considering the different ways in which the British national identity is conceived, one that incites a temporal collapse to illuminate both historical and contemporary considerations